One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Lost in the Labyrinth of Leadership and the End Awaiting Khamenei

S. Rouzbeh – Gabriel García Márquez’s novel The General in His Labyrinth recounts the final months of Simón Bolívar’s life: a hero who, in 1830, ill and alone, travels from the capital towards the Caribbean coast, perhaps to begin a new exile.

From the novel to reality

On his journey, Simón Bolívar encounters the betrayal of his companions, the collapse of his ideals and the people’s distrust. The “labyrinth” is a metaphor for the dead ends that power creates for itself. At the end of his life, the liberating leader fades away in solitude and defeat. This literary narrative rests on a journey through memory. Bolívar continually revisits the days and years gone by, and this recollection gradually wears away his hope for the future and his dream of living on another continent. He meets countless figures from the past, as if seeing them before him, and approaches the brink of delirium, trapped in the labyrinth of his mind and memories. By breaking with the traditional heroic image of Bolívar, Márquez depicts his despair and physical and psychological exhaustion: a point at which despair, illness and death prevail over love, health and life.

This labyrinth is not merely a literary metaphor. In Iran, Ali Khamenei has spent four decades moving through a labyrinth of power, narratives and fear, and the further he goes, the closer its walls draw in.

Personal account and the motivation for this comparison

At a moment when the country is grappling with a storehouse of crises—water, electricity, housing, livelihoods, unemployment and dozens of other issues—the speeches delivered by the leader of the Islamic Republic raise the question of why, at the most critical junctures, such manifestly wrong decisions are made. The same pattern was repeated just days before decisive deadlines in the sanctions file.

I was reminded of Lenin’s book One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. For him, the phrase meant a tactical retreat in order to achieve strategic victory. But in the experience of the Islamic Republic, if we assume that each year represents one step forward and two steps back, the net movement each year is minus one step. Over 46 years, the algebraic sum of this movement is minus 46 steps. That means society has moved 46 steps back from its starting point. The crucial difference is that, for Lenin, retreat was a means of building; in Iran today, retreat is a means of staying in power.

A clear example of a costly decision was the ban on importing vaccines made in the United States and Britain at the height of the pandemic, which restricted people’s access to globally recognised vaccines and provoked a wave of criticism. The leader announced it in a public speech, and human rights organisations warned of its human consequences. In addition, through mismanagement and stubbornness, the gains of the lengthy JCPOA negotiations were squandered, along with the insistence on uranium enrichment above 60 per cent, and the country has now gone back ten years once again.

The political psychology of dictators: a framework and its application to Khamenei’s behaviour

The literature on the political psychology of authoritarian leaders highlights several common traits:

1. An enemy-centred outlook and chronic suspicion: Leaders who see the world through the lens of conspiracy resort to internal purges and the securitisation of every sphere, pre-emptively crippling political competition. In Iran, this logic has been institutionalised through the Guardian Council’s oversight and disqualification of candidates.

2. Practical hostility to social rules and citizens’ rights: the suppression of nationwide protests in 1999, 2009, November 2019 and the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement in 2022; internet shutdowns and the ongoing restriction of civic spaces. A documented example is the nationwide internet shutdown in November 2019 and Amnesty International’s report on the killings.

3. Grandiosity and a constant need to manufacture legitimacy: failures are blamed on the enemy, and responsibility is not accepted.

4. Political vindictiveness and the gradual elimination of rivals, even from within one’s own circle: examples include Rafsanjani’s exclusion and the sidelining of old allies.

5. A supernatural interpretation of decisions: policy is sanctified in the language of divine destiny, rendering rational criticism ineffective; as in the statement, “The words that came out of my mouth were inspired by God.”

The Iranian labyrinth of power

The first core of this labyrinth is an economy of loyalty. In practice, the country is run for a small circle of winners and privileged insiders, and loyalty takes the place of merit. Major projects and rents are assigned to institutions close to the centre of power (the IRGC, the Leader’s Office, and the Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters), while long-term public policy is sacrificed for short-term displays.

The restraint of the elite and the flight of both the elite and the public proceed simultaneously. The path to competition is closed in advance, and the cost of political participation rises through security crackdowns. Decisions made in a feedback-free vacuum lead to costly gambles. In the nuclear file, the country entered a cycle of sanctions and targeted operations against key figures, and lost important scientists and commanders. A clear example is the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November 2020.

The official narrative takes the place of truth. Defeats are called victories, shortages are blamed on the enemy, and mistakes are cloaked in sacred language.

Why pressure outweighs compromise

Genuine compromise requires transparency, the sharing of benefits and acceptance of oversight—and that means threatening the pillars of loyalty. By contrast, controlled tension strengthens unity within the inner circle and, in the leader’s view, raises the price the other side must pay for concessions. That is why choosing to endure pressure, even when society is buckling under the costs, is seen as less costly in the logic of survival than compromise.

The snapback mechanism, UN Security Council sanctions and the tipping point

United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 provides for a mechanism under which previous sanctions are automatically reinstated in the event of a serious breach of nuclear commitments. The procedure for implementing this mechanism is also set out in Secretariat reports.

In recent days, Europe has invoked this mechanism to advance the process of reinstating sanctions, and a range of restrictions on arms, nuclear activity and finance is now back in force.

The return of UN sanctions means renewed pressure on finance and banking, shipping and aviation insurance, and the supply chains for components and technology. In practice, this brings imported inflation, shortages of parts, a surge in energy costs and greater business risk. Alongside the erosion of domestic legitimacy, this pressure could bring the personalist order close to a tipping point.

The final connection with the novel: from recollection to delusion

Marquez’s Bolívar repeatedly returns to the past to fashion a new narrative, but with each return the walls of the labyrinth draw closer around him. Khamenei, too, moves further into the same labyrinth through his constant return to enemy-centred narratives, the sanctification of mistaken decisions, and the disregard of tangible calamities such as the vaccine ban and the securitisation of civil protests. The nationwide internet shutdown in Aban 1398 and similar cases are clear examples of control being preferred to truth.

Conclusion

Today, the leader of the Islamic Republic explains politics through the delusion that the enemy is everywhere, and this single word drives the nation into poverty, hunger and a tangle of crises. With the snapback mechanism activated and UN sanctions reinstated, it is not only projects and slogans that are now on a downward slope towards collapse, but the personalist order itself. This collapse is a political death that leads to destruction. History has shown that dictators, whenever they become separated from the people and replace truth with a narrative, sooner or later meet the same fate. This is history’s answer to the labyrinth: when truth is silenced and fear and delusion take its place, the end is inevitable, sooner or later.